By William Mackay: All you have to do is take one look at rounds 10 through 12 of last Saturday’s bout between Amir Khan (24-1, 17 KO’s) and Marcos Maidana (29-2, 27 KO’s) to know that Khan isn’t ready for a fighter like Floyd Mayweather Jr. Khan, 24, was badly staggered in the 10th and took terrible one-sided punishment in the last rounds of the fight. This wasn’t the strong performance that his handlers and boxing fans were hoping it would be.
It’s interesting to see them to give Khan credit for having a good chin by staying on his feet, but you can’t his chin was great because he was badly hurt in the fight and needed to run the entire fight to keep from getting knocked out. But what I don’t understand is why his trainer Freddie Roach, Khan and his promoters Golden Boy Promotions are all of sudden punishing to put Khan in with Floyd Mayweather Jr. almost immediately. Why is that? It makes me think they’ve got a bad product that they’re trying to sell to the public as fast as they can before it goes stale and he’s exposed to the light of day.
The way they’re talking, they want to rush Khan in with Mayweather even before he takes on the Devon Alexander vs. Timothy Bradley winner. That’s crazy because he’s still not a big star in the U.S. and he’s coming off a fight in which he’s very lucky he didn’t get knocked out by Maidana. The Mandalay Bay Resort & Casino was only half filled last Saturday night, and that’s not a good sign if you’re looking at putting Khan in with Mayweather. It tells you that Khan needs more time, more wins over top notched fighters, and better performances before he’s put in with Mayweather.
As it is now, he’s not ready both because his lack of fans in the U.S. and because how terrible he looked in the last three rounds against Maidana. He wasn’t impressing. Even when Khan was controlling the fight, Maidana was walking through his shots as if they were nothing. Khan doesn’t have much power and his movement made him even weaker. As the rounds wore on, he looked spaghetti-armed as he threw shots but looked exhausted and hurt.
Khan missed with almost every punch he threw in the 10th through 12th round. He threw a few flurries but was missing and they weren’t slowing Maidana down one bit. Like in the other rounds, Maidana walked through Khan’s shots and continued to beat him up on the inside. Referee Joe Cortez seemed to save Khan by pulling Maidana away from him on the inside while Khan was holding one of Maidana’s arms. Instead of letting the action continue, Cortez kept pulling them apart and giving Khan space. This didn’t help Maidana that’s for sure.
I get the impression that they want Khan to face Mayweather as fast as they can before Khan gets beaten by someone. I can understand that because Khan will be in danger against anyone from here on out because they’re going to mainly match him against good fighters from here on out, and Khan isn’t good enough to dominate because of his weak chin.
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